“Money Can’t Buy You Friends….”

Bridget Grenville-Cleave, MAPP graduate of the University of East London,
is a UK-based positive psychology consultant, trainer and writer. She is author of
Introducing Positive Psychology: A Practical Guide (2012), and
The Happiness Equation
with Dr Ilona Boniwell. She regularly facilitates school well-being programs and Positive Psychology Masterclasses
for personal and
professional development. Find her on LinkedIn, Facebook and
Twitter @BridgetGC. Website. Full bio. Her articles are here.

“…but it can get you a better class of enemy” (Spike Milligan, 1918-2002).

The argument about whether or not money makes you happy rumbles on (see these PPND articles about Money and Happiness by Sherri Fisher, A Rich Man’s World by Bridget Grenville-Cleave, and Positive Psychology and Social Entrepreneurship by Giselle Nicholson). On Monday, theUK’s Guardian newspaper reported that Professor Richard Layard, Labour peer and eminent economist turned Happiness Tsar, got his wake-up call when he realized that over a certain point (quoted as being $20,000 per year), money does not make you very much happier. Of course we now know that the argument is a bit more complicated than that.

As North, Holahan, Moos and Cronkite (2008) point out, very little longitudinal research has been carried out on the relationship between income and well-being, and what has been done has rarely exceeded 1-2 years (Easterlin, 2004). In addition, we have to take into account the connection between happiness and values. Oishi et al (1999) showed that extrinsic values (e.g., power) or intrinsic values (e.g., benevolence or self-direction) were not associated with lower and higher well-being per se; what mattered was whether one’s activities were value-congruent. This suggests that pursuit of wealth, social status, and prestige can bring happiness, provided one’s values are aligned.

If we take the view that it’s OK for each individual to decide what makes him/her happy, and if his/her values are right in that “self-enhancement” space (Peterson, 2006, p. 182-3), are we’re saying that s/he should be allowed to pursue wealth and status goals come what may? Are all routes to subjective well-being OK? If not, who decides? And how can we advocate positive psychology principles to others, yet in our own lives continue to look for fame and fortune?

A partial answer may come from the New Economics Foundation: at our MAPP class last week we were fortunate to have Nic Marks talk to us about happiness and sustainable development. He presented NEF’s One Planet Living model, which sheds some light on the previous dilemma. In short, all routes to happiness are not OK; we have to take into account the effect of our lifestyle on other people and on the planet in general (see articles here, here, and here by Giselle Nicholson).

So back to the original North et al (2008) study of 274 married adults across a ten-year period. This showed that family social support (as measured by cohesion, expressiveness and absence of conflict) is substantially associated with happiness even after controlling for income, and that change in family social support is positively related to change in happiness, whereas change in family income is not.

The research suggests that focusing on improving your family relationships is more likely to increase your happiness than focusing on earning more money. But how many of you would give up the chance to earn $1,000 working on the weekend in favor of spending the same time with your family? It requires a lot of self-discipline to do this. Instead of justifying working on the lines of “we could spend that money on buying a new [insert name of latest consumer good here]”, you’d need to spend that time with your family mindfully, and not regret the lost opportunity all weekend.

Some simple but effective activities to improve family social support, suggested by Frisch (2006) include:

The Favor Bank – building up a metaphorical bank account of positive emotions by doing small favors for the people we care about

Making Conversation – a simple skill of pro-actively engaging in conversation, finding out what’s going on in our partner’s or children’s lives

Night on the Town – committing to spending one night each week or month with partner to re-affirm loving feelings

Take a Letter 1 – writing an uncensored letter to the person you’re in conflict with, sharing your inner-most thoughts and feelings. NB You never share the contents of this one with anyone else, it’s entirely personal

Take a Letter 2 – writing a letter with the aim of helping the relationship grow and flourish, rather than to hurt the other person. Openly acknowledge your feelings and make a request for how you want behavior to change (be specific), but do so in a considerate manner.

UEL Cohort 1 MAPP graduate with over 20 years experience in organisations, working as a Positive Psychology trainer, consultant, coach and lecturer. Author of 5 psychology books including 101 Activities for Happiness Workshops, Positive Psychology: A Practical Guide and The Happiness Equation. Co-designer of the "How's Your Day?' happiness phone app. My partner, teenage son and I live in the Cotswolds.

For me money is a security issue. I think once I had enough of it to believe my basic needs are met and enough to do the activities that are engaging, then the extra money loses its value exponentially to the time lost and the effort expended to obtain it. Plus if earning the extra loot means burnout and strains family relations, then the money is detrimental.

You may be interested in a series of studies conducted by students at the University of Zimbabwe about ten years when the current economic chaos was in its early stages.

Students explored the effects of social support on happiness in different settings. The students used three sets of variables.
a) happiness
b) social support (by different groups defined for each setting e.g, partners, friends, supervisors for people in work)
c) demographic factors (for example, education level, number of family members with an income stream).

As expected, social support had a substantial impact on happiness and indeed happiness was not related to objective conditions.

The design allowed us to tease out what kind of social support was useful.

Education level moderated the relationship between social support by your boss and happiness, for example. The more educated the person, the less dependent they were on their boss for support.

Relevant to your article and its emphasis on families, one of the settings was students about to leave school on completion of their O levels [GSCE][high school exams]. Happiness was correlated to social support by their families (not friends or teachers) and their perception of social support was correlated to the number of people in their immediate and extended families with an income stream.

What is more, when we factor analysed the earning patterns of their families, we found a strong single factor solution. The students were showing considerable wisdom that their life chances depended upon their position in a wider economic network. (NB All the students were in the same school or at least the same geographical and economic catchment).

Does UEL have any open events? I come down to London every few months and would love to make contact.

Hi Jeff
Yes I think your point is well made. There seems to be a difference between having enough money to meet needs and having enough to meet wants. Perhaps happy people are able to separate their needs and wants more clearly. Or maybe their wants are not very strong. I wonder what research there is on this – any ideas?
Bridget

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